We should not be surprised. The Kingdom of Saud is rooted in wahhabism - an ultraconservative branch of Islam that also happens to be the primary influence of a little group called Daesh/ISIL.
I knew this was suspected but I thought it was officially denied. Apparently it's acknowledged by the Saudis. This quote from a recent FT article [0] surprised me:
After the Iraqi city of Mosul fell to a lightning Isis offensive in 2014, even
the late Prince Saud al-Faisal, the respected Saudi foreign minister,
remonstrated with John Kerry, US secretary of state, that “Daesh [Isis] is our
[Sunni] response to your support for the Da’wa” — the Tehran-aligned Shia
Islamist ruling party of Iraq.
If you invest a lot of time, whether it's configuring your .vimrc/.emacs.d/init.el or throwing a lot of money at a specific car/tool brand, you're naturally going to have an emotional attachment with that. Read the comments on tool reviews on youtube - contractors have holy wars over their DeWalts vs Milkwakees. Slashdot in the mid 90s was emacs vs vim/GNOME2 vs KDE3 for the better part of a decade. It's not limited to only the Perl greybeards or contractors - it's quite common for tenured professors to be ousted as complete frauds after some other lab tries to replicate the findings only to yield entirely different results. "The results should have yielded this, so .." This is human nature - people are going to inherently defend anything they invested a lot of time in learning/using/doing.
With religion, it's 10x more intense because they can't put down the beaker or drill and go have a beer with their buddies - it's their entire identity. FT/Der Spiegel/The Guardian(usually)/the Newshours(BBC/PBS) all do a good job for the limited amount of time/column-lines they have to cover such a complicated topic such as religious factionism that goes back thousands of years. Then there's the Bismarckian Realpolitik which is certainly a large aspect of it.
There was certainly Saudi money behind it. But when you hear "state-sponsored terrorism" it could mean a lot of things. A governor or 8th son might have funded a non-profit NGO which later turned out to be mostly legitimate but 10% of those funds were diverted to purchase New-old-stock over-stock arms from the former USSR (then the question arises - was it with or without his knowledge?). because the House of Saud itself has politics that are so intricate internally that you'd have to spend years studying that exclusively. Start reading about the First Saudi state of 1744 (under Abdel Wahhab's rule in alliance with ibn Saud) and a few thousand pages later one might have half of a grasp on the internal politics. And that's just historical internal Saudi politics. Bring in religious subsets and hatred spawned from that, ethnic hatred (Persians are about as Arab, as Japanese are Chinese), international interests propping up different regimes and it's all a very complicated game.
Think of how complicated our government operates with just two parties - the capitalists who retain the lobbyists that influence the congressmen who have multiple interests that have to be simultaneously balanced in order to keep their constituents, donors, and party all happy enough so that you retain power. It's all a subtle game of spinning plates and we're working with just with two parties (effectively).
This. I think the fundamental human inability to acknowledge and anticipate the complex forces that drive an opponent was evolutionarily handy in the savannah, but is now quite the handicap in navigating geopolitics. This is something that mainstream media is adept at - describing Iran or China as a monolithic malevolent force plotting evil against the rest of the world might be elegant from a Manichean perspective (e.g. "Iran called off talks", "China moved its ships to the Spratly Islands", etc.), but does not do enough justice to the mind-boggling complexity of these ancient societies.
Due to various issues, you'll just have to find a way to watch it... (BBC iplayer blocked in us, copyright issues when posted on youtube, etc, etc, etc)
I feel like the problem with Adam Curtis' work is... well, Adam Curtis. It's very easy to dismiss his entire body of work as "conspiracy theory", because he only writes about these sorts of topics. And it does him and his work a disservice, because of course there is a lot of truth in what he writes and produces. As with anything, there is also a lot of unsubstantiated narrative, but for anyone who's on the fence I would highly recommend watching Bitter Lake. Even if you think Curtis is a crank, the film is beautiful and the score is fantastic (Burial, Four Tet, etc.) and you might find some of the facts interesting.
His conspiracy theories remind me more of Alan Moore's definition. "Yes, there is a conspiracy, indeed there are a great number of conspiracies, all tripping each other up ... the main thing that I learned about conspiracy theories is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in the conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy, or the grey aliens, or the twelve-foot reptiloids from another dimension that are in control, the truth is far more frightening; no-one is in control, the world is rudderless."
I agree. I highly recommend Bitter Lake, because it's mostly history. But the ending and the "thesis" (as I interpreted it) isn't quite convincing for me.
Watched it a couple of weeks ago and as always was deeply impressed by Curtis' work.
His style is so unique in that he approaches the subject matter from a totally unexpected angle, connecting seemingly unrelated events and concepts to create a unique and original painting of history.
"The Century of Self" is probably his seminal work. Remember that Adam Curtis is .. well.. Adam Curtis. His story is going to have a spin (as anyone's will - but it's important to be cognizant of that; when one reads Zinn's Peoples History of the US, I tell them to read "The Origin of Politics" just to get another take from an equally well-educated, articulate writer). I try really hard to get both sides of the story from internally consistent sources.
It's easy for me to immediately dismiss most modern neo-con sources, since their (amazingly effective) strategy is mostly based on emotional scaremongering with internally inconsistent arguments. I'm not their target demographic and they know it.
They're not idiots (in fact, re: education - Fox News has a surprisingly large percentage of hosts with degrees from well-revered instituions; which makes it all the more ironic when one points out that nice blonde lady denigrating the "liberal East coast elites" trying to emotionally connect with the midwestern housewife, herself is Harvard educated) but there definitely is another side to the story and it's important to at least hear their argument before you dismiss it.
I recently watched "The Century of Self" -- it was excellent and I can thoroughly second iheartmemcache's recommendation.
As for getting the balance of hearing all arguments, I have a habit of doing the same. I regularly read The Economist for its free-market bias (and excellent writing, btw), for example.
I have a habit of growing my amazon wish list from hacker news comments. I own Zinn's People's History of the US, I can't seem to find The Origin of Politics on amazon. There are many similarly named books, but all slightly different, do you know the author for that?
"All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace", an amazing 3-part documentary about computers, society, the shortcomings of systems-thinking. Also by Adam Curtis.
Pretty much everything by Adam Curtis is excellent. There's also The Mayfair Set, The Trap, Pandora's Box, and The Power of Nightmares. The Power of Nightmares is about Islamic extremists and the Neocons.
Also, we should not be surprised if the rest of the documents will be declassified when, for various reasons, there will be an acute need of war with Saudi Arabia.
Well if the US does go to war with Saudi Arabia, I hope it's an economic one. Stuff like funding electric cars and clean energy to cut off Saudi Arabia's oil money. But that's probably not going to happen.
As I said below, what if the leadership of Saudi Arabia is seized by some hostile factions which attack the US & EU interests in the area ? What if these factions denounce the US - Saudi alliance and switch sides demanding help from the Chinese ? You think US & EU would place sanctions and wait like they do with the Russians ? I think US & EU would pull out all the files (support for terrorism, human rights abuses, democracy, yada, yada) they have against "ex-Saudi" Arabia and punch their way in before the Chinese move an inch.
> Also, we should not be surprised if the rest of the documents will be declassified when, for various reasons, there will be an acute need of war with Saudi Arabia.
There will never be a war with KSA. This place is way too sensitive even the US wouldn't dare touch it. It would be an instant war with the Muslim world. The US has other ways to pressure KSA if needed. I don't think anybody in the US would be that foolish and attack the Mecca .
Maybe I'm naive, but I think there are contingency plans for (almost) everything. Imagine for example there is a coup in KSA and "the bad guys" end up in power and they do crazy things with "our fuel".
Place Mecca & Medina under international Muslim custodianship* , and then proceed with your war plans. You realize that those two cities constitute only a small geographic area of the Hijaz region let alone the whole Arabia?
*: BTW this is an actual demand of Iran and many other predominantly Muslim countries to have the Islamic holy sites under int'l custodianship and not be treated as part of House of Saud's possessions as it seems the case with time passing while these people in power.
A union of Muslim-majority countries. Let the Muslims decide who control and oversee their holy sites. These are not House of Saud's possessions and shouldn't be treated as such.
I've heard the comparison that this group is the same kind of caliphate style setup where they wear white instead and stability is granted through oil and money.
However, I don't know how accurate such a statement is. I've also heard SA compared to a bunch of tribes that are continually bribed to behave cohesively.
It is accurate. Daesh follow wahabism, the Saudi branded form of Islam that is much more extreme as did Osama Bin Laden. The HuffPo isn't my favorite news source, but this is a good article:
It's a mix of Sururiyya, which is influenced by Wahhabism and Ba'athism where a state is ruled by a vanguard party. They removed the disloyal parts of Sururiyya which called for questioning inept leaders and replaced it with the unwavering loyalty obligations of a typical Ba'athist dictatorship.
The fact that Saddam era henchmen who clashed with KSA over the pillaging of Kuwait are running Daesh, plus the propaganda coming out from them calling for the removal of the house of Saud as custodian of the two holy mosques, and considering Saudi military defectors and political dissenters make up the majority of Daesh recruits it seems suicidal they would support them in anyway. Maybe there are political opposition in KSA doing so but even that would risk their own status since Daesh proved they don't care about agreements when they invaded Mosul and promptly executed the local elite who helped them get in.
It's already messed up that one of U.S. "allies" would be behind the 9/11 attacks, and that U.S. went ahead and invaded a whole other country for it anyway, but at least there could be an argument to be made that it wasn't the Saudi government behind it (which seems rather likely that it wasn't).
But protecting who the culpable parties were in the biggest attack on the U.S. since Pearl Harbor, because it "might endanger relationships" with that country (and after already invading Iraq for supposedly the same reason), is beyond messed up. Everyone involved in covering it up should be tried as traitors, as I don't just say that as a hyperbole.
It's interesting that this is the result of a country practicing a hands off policy, instead of the "cultural imperialism" many complain about. The Saudi's chose to work with the US over the brits because we agreed to firewall our operations to keep their culture/society "pure" as possible.
we invaded afghanistan because bin laden was residing there and those in charge, the taliban, were protecting him (or the other way around given real political strength). it's fun to imagine the entire us intelligence apparatus as corrupt and criminal, but reality's plenty interesting.
After 9/11, the Taliban also offered to hand bin Laden over to the US. The Bush administration rejected the offer, as it would require 1) proof of a connection and 2) an end to the bombing of Afghanistan. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.ter...
The Taliban and al Qaeda were not close allies. Mullah Omar, founder of the Taliban, actually despised bin Laden's tactic of attacks on the West and anywhere outside the area the Taliban ruled.
This is a lot of revisionism. The Taliban offered to "discuss" handing over bin Laden on the condition the US stopped bombing them. It was a clear delay tactic. They demanded evidence that he was responsible and would only turn him over to a neutral third party. Way too little too late.
It's totally false that Talbian and al Qaeda were not allies. Al Qaeda trained members of the Taliban army. If the Taliban despised al Qaeda tactics, why didn't they agree to the US demands after 9-11. Or why didn't they boot al Qaeda out of the country before 9-11.
Taliban were complicit before and after the attacks.
Offered him up during Clinton administration, too, with result being Clinton bombing some people. Got to the point that some people thought bin Laden was an informant.
In any case, bin Laden said he had nothing to do with 9/11 then a FBI spokesman in (2006?) said they had no evidence tying him to 9/11. I don't need any wild speculation to think they might be scapegoating him for something. Maybe simply tying up loose ends from CIA's prior work on things like training terrorists to beat superpowers. You bet they didn't interrogate him on purpose and not out of anger. ;)
I was quoting the FBI. You can tell them how crazy you think they are. Meanwhile, the 9/11 Commission Report itself indicated attackers were funded by and tight with Saudi elites. You might, based on official report, wonder why our Presidents and counterterror efforts are tight with the one country they said sponsored 9/11 and other terrorism. ;)
The report does claim that. It cites the government agencies whose declassified documents say they armed him in the first place. They lied about that for a long time. They were caught repeatedly lying, esp on torture or surveillance effectiveness, during that administration. Using CIA's own intelligence framework, their source integrity rating would be very, very low even if I trusted 9/11 Commission to faithfully do their part. I mean, think about it, do we really trust CIA and DOD to give us evidence that they're guilty of negligence with direct access to source materials by 9/11 Commission? Or should we reject those parts as tainted? The latter is standard in every criminal investigation in U.S. outside of cases involving "national security."
In any case, the other thing the report said was that Arab-Americans working for CIA posed as Saudi's to trick AQ operatives into cooperating. Turned out, they thought they were saved by their Saudi friends and gave all kinds of unlisted numbers to royalty, etc. The revelation that funding and connected personnel came from the Saudi's means we should've torn up Saudi Arabia looking for them if our goal was stopping/punishing terrorists. Instead, Afghanistan and... Iraq...? While giving arms and military training to the Saudis through private military companies? And sharing terrorist intelligence with them when they just funded 9/11? What... the... hell...?
Now, fast forward to today, the Obama Administration is still protecting the pages showing level of Saudi involvement. The Saudi's still don't want their info or people in a courtroom. You indicate OBL and Afghanistan are all we gotta worry about whereas the 9/11 report on Saudi involvement, that classified doc, and U.S. government working their ass off to protect Saudi's that funded 9/11 seems to suggest very opposite of your or official claims.
That is, if OBL did it at all, he was just a tool for a large, Saudi organization connected to their financial and political elites that murdered 3,000 Americans. That connection is in official report, but downplayed. And U.S. government, for whatever reason, is doing everything they can to cover that up and keep justice from happening. If that's not evidence of supporting terrorism or negligence re 9/11 then I don't know what is.
Note: We've been able to show complicity or U.S. support of terrorism without resorting to anything beyond their own official report and actions. No conspiracy sites, no thermite, nothing. Just their own claims and hard work to protect Saudi crooks.
Usually good. Fun part, though, is that doing ad hominem fairly would find all the times the FBI, DOD, CIA, NSA, and so on mislead the public or courts. Then, their credibility would be at zero just like some conspiracy nuts. Then, moderates like myself would win by default given we're the only ones presenting, but not forging, evidence. So, I tell them to bring the character assessments on but apply them fairly and equally.
Evidence was elsewhere. You know where to find it. You had already dismissed the whole topic with an ad hominem with plenty assumptions and no references whatsoever. If anything, I acted above your standard of discussion. I've replied in another comment with more details focusing on just one angle from government docs and activity only.
I've always found the way security/terrorism issues are portrayed in movies or the news, especially in the U.S. to be really "cute".
The manicheism of it all made me believe that either every news anchor really has no clue about how it works, or that they're exceptionally good actors.
I also found that many times, events tend to be seen as discrete things that live in a vacuum rather than rooted to some previous event (isn't it interesting that these documents are resurfacing during a transition period where the U.S. is turning its back to Saudi Arabia and warming it up with Iran? Small pieces of content and info injected here and there).
An interesting piece if you have a few minutes to spare:
So you know how the Bush family is in bed with the Saudis (bandar bush for example) - after watching bitter lake i am more convinced the Saudis did it, but the neocon Hawks and bush family was complicit.
Those pages have been kept so securely & hidden away from everyone that even Congressmen & Senators with clearances weren't even allowed to take notes on a scratchpad, when perusing them.
They had to mentally memorize any of the contents therein !
Here's the recent 60 Minutes piece on the White House's potential declassification of the "28 pages" [1] of the 9/11 Commission Report [2].
It also comes at a time when the White House and intelligence officials
are reviewing whether to declassify one of the country's most sensitive
documents -- known as the "28 pages." They have to do with 9/11 and the
possible existence of a Saudi support network for the hijackers while
they were in the U.S.
For 13 years, the 28 pages have been locked away in a secret vault. Only
a small group of people have ever seen them. Tonight, you will hear from
some of the people who have read them and believe, along with the families
of 9/11 victims that they should be declassified.
> (...) weren't even allowed to take notes on a scratchpad, when perusing them.
That's really not that surprising. Notes would need to be derivatively classified, and would require special transportation out of the SCIF that they were taken in. Additionally, I doubt any congresspeople's offices are SCIFs that would be allowed to store such sensitive information.
Careful not to drink the KOOLAID. Congress people, especially Wyden, have requested SCIF's for events like that before and were rejected on technicalities. Bruce Schneier said they requested one when they met him to discuss Snowden leaks DOD were still trying to contain. DOD wouldnt allow the SCIF.
CIA pulled same kind of BS with torture report allegedly for OPSEC then showed true motivation with hacking to cover up their wrongdoing.
Not drinking any koolaid, I have just worked with classified info in the past and have run head-on with the restrictions regarding their handling. I have no idea whether the intelligence community has some ulterior motive, I'm just saying that not allowing them to take notes isn't some unbelievable restriction for TS information.
I was joking with you on that part. Yes, there's policy requirements that affect these things. That the Executive agencies keep refusing to make adequate exceptions or provisions for Legislative and Judicial is either a sign of incompetence or malice.
This is hard to parse without any commentary. What should I, as an average person, take from this? Should I start to think Saudi Arabia as a terrorist country or is there room for interpretation?
I'm very sure, by intuition, that this is important but probably would have been more valuable with some opinions from people who are knowledgeable on the subject.
>Should I start to think Saudi Arabia as a terrorist country or is there room for interpretation?
Sorry, but SA has been supporting terrorism for decades, all around the middle east and the world. In fact much more so than other openly blamed countries.
Not to mention their horrendous fundamentalist human rights, religious laws record. It's just that they have oil and friends (probably because of the first).
If you're just hearing this for the first time, I'm not sure what you can "take away" from this news. I'm certain though that you need to read deeper in the history and related news.
It's not an "agenda book", it might even be described in some stretches as somewhat sympathetic/pragmatic to the regime, but it's a very thorough and very well written history of Saudi Arabia and analysis of its current (as of 2009) situation - politics, economics etc. Wikipedia states (unsourced) that it has "been cited as standard study texts for the diplomatic community working inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia", but I can believe it.
Of course, since it's not news that the Saudi government is willing to fund terrorist groups involved in overseas conflicts, the bigger question which the paper doesn't consider is whether it would have been in the Saudi Arabian government's interest to sponsor the September 11th actions.
I think the answer to this is probably no: it massively boosted the prestige of al-Qaeda - a group which is anti House of Saud first and anti US/Israel second - over Sunni terrorist organisations more closely aligned with Saudi interests and the only part of US foreign policy response that was entirely predictable was the invasion of Afghanistan, well outside Saudi Arabia's area of interest.
To be honest, if you're not already aware of it, the most interesting connection to a national government agency mentioned in the paper is probably two of the hijackers living with an FBI informant...
Monetary interests or Wahhabism extremest religious interest?
60 Minutes had a great show Sunday which actually drew more connections than just the two hijackers living with the FBI informant. I felt after watching there are too many "coincidences" for them to not be involved.
Tbh, I think that whilst the September 11 bombings might have actually helped the Saudi government's monetary interests through increased trade as a key Western ally, they certainly hurt their religious ones.
On the one hand Saudi-funded madrassas find themselves under a lot more scrutiny and a lot more difficulty in even opening in the West. On the other, those people most subject to the appeal of hardline Sunni Islamism the Saudis favour are also likely to be impressed by the success achieved by a charismatic radical whose principal religious objective is driving the House of Saud and their infidel allies out of their holy land, someone whose fatwas explicitly mention "appropriation of Saudi Arabia" as the worst of America's crimes. Especially when the ensuing "War on Terror" results in the House of Saud being drawn into an ever-closer alliance with the infidel American and firmly stuck on the wrong side of the clash of civilizations from the point of view of jihadis regardless of how much austerity their morality police impose and how many beheadings they carry out ostensibly in the name of strict religious observance.
Obviously al Qaeda appeals to the religious interests of some Wahhabist extremist Saudis like fifteen of the actual hijackers, and I'm sure there are plenty of individual Saudis who like to play both sides by becoming fat and rich as business magnates with government connections whilst funnelling some of those profits to extremist organizations just in case that happens to be their ticket to paradise. But I'm really not seeing the motivation for the actual Saudi government or intelligence services funding an organisation which actually represents a bigger existential threat to them than it does to the US, precisely because it appeals to segments of their public.
Of course, there's no secret they directly funded Osama Bin Laden before he fell out with them over their backing of American intervention in Gulf War, back in the 1980s when he was fighting the Soviet Union with the Afghan muhadjeen. But so did the other enemy he devoted the latter parts of his life to rallying the Islamic world against...
In addition to coldtea's point: Saudi is in some respects the bizarro version of the US. While we export American Idol and McDonalds, they build schools teaching extremist Islam all over the world. Many formerly more moderate countries have gotten much more theocratic in the last 20 years, and Saudi evangelism funded by oil money has played a huge role.
For example, when I visited Bangladesh in the early 1990's, seeing veiled women in the capital city of Dhaka was unusual. It's very common today.
> For example, when I visited Bangladesh in the early 1990's, seeing veiled women in the capital city of Dhaka was unusual. It's very common today.
Why do you think SA has something to do with this?
BTW, this is true in some western countries as well (I'm thinking of France where veiled women are everywhere, it wasn't the case in the 80s). I wonder what explains this trend.
Bangladeshi here. SA has to do everything with that. Mostly SA funded madrassas and mosques, and SA has huge influence over the govt. and the people since SA hires many foreign workers from Bangladesh. Before continuing the debate on there is no proof that SA has done that (from my experience, that is how it proceeds), the tremendous economic and religious influence of SA has forced people to stop talking about it. Several secular bloggers have been murdered because they criticized SA branded Islam.
On a related note, I never understand why some people are always so eager to give SA the benefit of doubt.
I don't think HN is the right place for this, there are plenty of studies on this sort of phenomena. In short: there are powerful network effects, which are influenced by various factors. Saudi money going directly to religious organizations abroad is one of them, and can be the catalyst for triggering a number of other processes. This is even more true in very problematic places, like Bosnia-Hercegovina during and after the war or French banlieues.
> Why do you think SA has something to do with this?
There were some leaked Saudi cables (from Wikileaks?), that showed how radical outfits in other countries count on Saudi largesse to further their agenda.
Al Quaeda was founded by Saudi nationals, but it saw the Saudi government as their enemy just as US — so, while a lot of terrorists are Saudi citizens, they are a common enemy for Saudis and US together. Saudi government itself is balancing between international system and wahhabism, which has a lot of local support: if they would suddenly adopt human rights, democracy and other western policies, they would most likely not stay in power for long. So, US relationship with Saudis makes a lot of sense: US is trying to find common interests and build commercial relationship, hoping that it will help gradually promote western values in Saudi society over time. If there would appear a democratic, westernized faction, US would support it over existing government, but it doesn't seem likely in near future. Alternatively, if US would cut ties with Saudi government because of their human rights records (as a lot of commentors here routinely suggest), it would only push Saudi government and society away from western values further into islamism.
Don't forget the agreement between the house of Saud and the religious rulers. The religious rulers will not criticise the house of Saud and they will be pretty much left alone.
Add to that mix tribal allegiances, the cross pollination of all groups seeking their own agendas and you have the situation where some very wealthy religious extremists can fund their agendas worldwide including "terrorism".
Too many posts are seeing everything as black and white. The Saudis from the top down planned 9-11 etc.
Just like in the US, there are hidden agendas, secretive groups akin to the CIA all pushing their own agendas whether financial / religious. And just like some in US politics, there are some pushing for the end of days where their chosen deity / son of / prophet of returns and leads them to paradise / the next world.
Great post. Take the Islamic schools. They are intended to promote Islam and Wahabism. The Saudi government doesn't want to fund extremism as such, it's just that their governance and control over these schools and other Islamic charities they fund is minimal and incompetent. As a result, the money too often gets diverted to causes and pockets the kingdom would never choose to support directly. And yes, some of it gets channelled to terrorist organizations.
So on the one hand it's true that Saudi Arabia and a government funds terrorists and extremists, but that's not at all their intention and as has been pointed out many of these organizations would quite happily slaughter the Saudi royal family.
The again, there are some individuals within the regime and probably at some levels within the royal family itself, that actually do support terrorists and extremists.
> The Saudi government doesn't want to fund extremism as such, it's just that their governance and control over these schools and other Islamic charities they fund is minimal and incompetent.
That's a very charitable view, especially for a monarchy that exerts tight control over many aspects of life in their country. That is not insisting on simplicity. Pakistan's government, and their security services, for example, are manifestly capable of working multiple conflicting agendas. But that doesn't mean they can be excused.
As others on this discussion have pointed out, Saudi has exported both terrorism and the fundamentalism that gives the terrorist fishes a much larger sea to swim in. The US, in part because if its own problems with religious fundamentalism, is unable to forthrightly work against religious fundamentalism and other excesses in religiosity, such as suppression of women's rights, in the Moslem world when that might be the most effective way to reduce terrorist incidents. Imagine trying to end the Soviet Empire without detente.
I don't think that comparing religious fundamentalism of american christians and of islamists is fair. "Fags must die" demonstrations are a long way of overturning governments and genocide.
I'm not comparing them. I'm saying American religious fundamentalism is an impediment to openly opposing religious fundamentalism and anti-equality of the sexes religious doctrine elsewhere, comparable or not. Nonetheless, except for the overt calls for genocide (ours believe The Eschaton will take care of the Jews), you might have picked better examples of differences between the two.
All fair points. It's harder for them to exert control on funding to organizations beyond their borders, but at the end of the day it's their money and they are responsible for where it goes.
My understanding is: Saudis fund the "troublemakers", as long as they stay away from KSA and keep the mayhem outside. It's like bribing the local goons to leave your hood alone; go cause trouble in other areas.
> if they would suddenly adopt human rights, democracy and other western policies, they would most likely not stay in power for long
I think you may be right (I haven't enough information about Saudi Arabians or their views to tell) but I really want to believe that the real-life politics is much more rational than in a game of Civilization.
Well, that's been the case with Arab spring, Syria and Lybia: when US sees (often, mistakenly) that faction with more westernized values can take over, US supports it.
However, it is completely rational: "spreading democracy" is valid not only from idealism, but from the notion that it's much easier to deal with governments and societies that share your values. Of course, US have not always followed this motivation throughout history, but in case of islamic arab countries in the last years, US has pretty solod record in that regard.
Most of the population here aren't as in the media stereotyped depiction. Most of them just like ordinary people around the globe, workers, teachers, doctors, students, business owners, etc...
They just doomed by .. well, you know, I can't say.
Take me as an example. I'm a regular guy from there. All my concerns in life right now is to get high grade in my (scikit-learn/keras)-based CS graduation project.
Looking towards silicon valley and scientific institutes in the world to get inspired. Hoping to get more time to learn React and become pro in rails/DotNET and contribute something that worth to the OSS.
They're not "ordinary people" like Americans or Germans. There is a face people (especially educated people) from these countries like to put on. "Oh, we are just like you." Except the normalization of domestic abuse; inhumane treatment of servants; strict gender roles; condemnation of homosexuals; the deep-seated racism. In the country where my parents come from, 87% of women are the victims of domestic violence: http://www.asianews.it/news-en/In-Bangladesh,-87-per-cent-of....
It's not a "media stereotype." I'm speaking from first-hand experience. I've seen most of the above in my own extended family (which is all educated and upper middle class). It's the dirty laundry and it's deeply ingrained in culture. Obviously, a lot of people do embrace western values. But I've met plenty of educated people from those countries with a western education whose are still trapped by their culture. They might be hackers who code, but they also think women shouldn't work.
Yes. Of course this is true. Governments operate differently than the people of the country. Every single Saudi person I have known has been generous and kind.
First, there is not really such thing as a "terrorist country". Terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology. To be more precise, one might refer to "state sponsored terrorism" or something to that effect. But that is beside the point.
For context around this particular document, there appears to be the following article:
Terrorism is what "they" do. We do "morally just wars".
Said every side involved in any conflict sense the dawn of humanity.
ISIS: morally just. The west = terrorists. And they are probably right. Our bombs do terrorise. As do the torture weopans we export to their ruling parties.
I agree with what you are saying, "terrorism" is a propaganda word for sure. However it also does have a specific definition; that is, using threats or violence to create a political outcome among civilians.
Your comment highlights my real point though... they are not "our" bombs. Maybe they are Bush's, Cheney's, Raytheon's, Boeing's, Obama's, or Clinton's bombs... but to refer to them as "ours" groups in ordinary people, many of whom do not approve. This is why I took issue with the possibility of categorizing Saudi Arabia as a "terrorist country", and why I prefer a term such as "state sponsored terrorism".
The title is a little misleading. Obviously the hijackers were mostly from Saudi. The document shows how those people were directly connected with government.
However in Saudi a ton of people work for the government so it isn't surprising they had connections to Saudi government.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Has a very "Scientists report water to be wet" feel to the whole thing.
It's almost like they think that 9/11 is just a part of life now, and the only thing that matters is the paper trail. Realistically, it signals a new societal problem of religious toxicity and an insidious new type of invader that we as Americans (assumption) have not faced before. If we can't trust our neighbors not to blow us up, who CAN we trust?
Everyone as in your average joes and janes on the street? Not even close. People still think Iraq did 9/11.
This document merely suggests the possible link, while there are some document still classified that actually links Saudi Arabia's role as a state sponsoring the attack on 9/11.
US and its coalition went to war with Iraq and Libya over what could be said to be nothing compared to the 9/11 attack. US wanted to start a war with Iran, another giant monolithic power in Middle East over the regime's rhetoric.
Compared to those rationales for going to war, if there are actual proofs of SA's state involvement of 9/11 attack, we will actually have "just war" cause for going to war against SA. Imagine the impact of that. Convincing the masses would be so easy, that won't even be a problem. Convincing senate and congress probably needs more work, but given that there's huge support for war from the public, it would have to be a risk congressmen/women and senate would have to take losing the election next time.
When that happens, you don't need any convincing to make people wonder about WTF was Bush admin., Obama admin. and perhaps entire Republican and Democratic party doing for last 15 years knowing that SA was the real enemy?
There is a difference between knowing something and a fact that can be proven. With proven facts you families of the deceased can sue KSA. "Common knowledge" doesn't work in a court of law.
Is it unusual for nations to use terrorists, mercenaries, privateers for missions that they don't want to be directly associated with? IIRC, the Russians and the Americans were doing this in the Middle East in the 20th century, and may still be doing it in Syria now.
Seems to me that the real news is that Saudi and America are able to be allies and enemies at the same time, not that they may have employed people who have the big T label.
My economics professor back in college would give us these take-home quizzes each month with hundreds and hundreds of "short-answer" questions on them to use to study for tests and such.
I noticed there was a inconsistent amount spacing between questions and opened one of the pdf's in illustrator. The fool actually drew white boxes over all of the answers. Needless to say, I walked away from that class with high marks.
In 2012 Citigroup forecast that Saudi Arabia would run out of oil in 2030. If true, there must have been considerable anxiety in the years preceding 9/11 as the Saudi government contemplated ways to offset its impending decline in reserves. Fortunately for the Saudis, 9/11 was the catalyst for the fall of Iraq, a country with the largest unproven oil reserves in the region, and ideally located near Saudi refineries and export infrastructure. In the book Hotel California: The Clandestine War in Iraq, the author repeatedly claims the Bush Administration was divorced from reality... its scary to think the United States was manipulated into deposing Sadaam for the benefit of Saudi Arabia.
I have stated this was the goal for years. They knew that Saudi was peak, and what better way to prevent the next largest reserves from being pumped dry; war. Keep that going until you can go in and steal all the oil after you run out.
Reading the quotes from this page give enough of an indication that there is more than just a connection between the hijackers and Saudi diplomats as was shown in this release, but specifically financing and involvement from well known figures at a seemingly significant level:
> When asked by 60 Minutes if the 28 pages include specific names: “Yes. The average intelligent watcher of 60 Minutes would recognize them instantly.”
I'm afraid that this will put SA in a very bad position, bad enough to gain some hate from around the world.
The day this alliance between the US and SA starts to diminish or ends, it's not going to be worrying. Muslims already get so much hate everywhere, if the home of Islam gets bad PR, the middle east will turn up worse than it already is. I hope I'm just being pessimistic here.
SA should get bad PR. SA has been exporting Islamic terrorism for decades with their petro-dollars. SA funds mosques, madrassas with their extreme ideologies which in turn breeds terrorists. I have seen my home country has been being Islamized which is directly funded by SA.
Unless they manage to stir enough hate to create more and more conflicts. The problem isn't really SA's government, it is the potential for violence to spread.
Once SA gets bad rep, muslims around the world might also get bad PR. So it might be wiser to play along with them than to pave the way for more middle east instability.
Well, we knew almost immediately after the attacks that 15 of the 19 attackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia.
From skimming the document quickly, I don't see anything that implies definite ties to the Saudi government, which would be interesting. They knew people who worked for the Saudi government, but I don't think this document says anything more than that.
That rule would be the first rule in the guidelines:
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Without commenting on this specific article, if there's one thing I learned from reddit, it's that heavy moderation >>> "the users choose and everything is free".
An example of the latter is pretty much any big subreddit you think of as awful and full of nonsense. Some examples of the former include the most well-respected science and history-related subreddits. I would honestly prefer there to be heavy moderation on HN with someone who has a vision for what "HN content" should be (even allowing for the fact that those people may disagree with me) than a free-for-all.
Random sites on the Internet are not the entire Internet, nor are they the government. I believe in Free Speech when it comes to people with power over me, not so much when it comes to websites that I can choose to leave at any time.
This is not just Obama, Hillary, and obviously the Bush families who have had long ties with the Saudi dinasty. This isn't a left vs right issue, most politicians in US are in bed with the Saudis.
